The present invention relates to a unit for detecting contaminating agents, such as bacterial loads in user fluids and biological and chemical indicators in fluids drawn from a patient undergoing treatment in a dental surgery. The invention also relates to a dental unit equipped with such a detecting unit.
The invention addresses dental surgeries in particular. In dental surgeries, dental units of the latest generation are of extremely high quality in terms of functionality, appliance control and, above all, level of sterility. This high quality is the result of constant research and development of solutions for the improvement of dental units which, in the philosophy of the Applicant, means also being able to offer health-care providers and patients an effective means of detecting biological indicators of diseases that can be transmitted during a dental treatment where there is a high risk of cross-infection between patient, health-care provider and dental unit. This risk applies to the dental surgery as a whole and to all the equipment normally used in it.
The ultimate goal of manufacturers of medical and dental equipment is to provide solutions capable of allowing treatment to be carried out under conditions of total safety for both health-care providers and patients. It is in this perspective that we must view the development of recent devices for disinfecting/sterilizing dental handpieces and dental unit water and air lines (even between successive patient treatments) and the use of disposable instruments.
There is growing awareness, among health-care providers, not only of the risks of transmitting certain types of diseases during dental treatment, for example by direct contact with blood, but also of the dangers of infection due to the presence of bacteria in the user fluids of a dental unit.
Therefore, in order to ascertain the presence of bacteria in dental unit fluid supply lines and to identify chemical and biological indicators in patients undergoing treatment (thus guaranteeing both patients and health-care providers against the risks of cross infection during successive patient treatments with a contaminated dental unit) the Applicant has designed and developed a total safety unit capable, even in real time, of detecting not only bacteria in the fluids used in a dental unit but also biological and/or chemical indicators in a patient being treated.
Another aim is to provide a dental unit equipped with detecting units of this kind both on the lines that supply the user fluids to the equipment used on a patient, and on the conduits used to aspirate fluids from the patient.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a unit for detecting contaminating agents, especially in dental surgeries, said unit comprising detecting-transducing means of a chemical, biochemical or electrical type designed to detect a quantity as a function of a variable to be checked and to provide an electrical signal corresponding to the quantity detected; and means for signaling the quantity, connected to the detecting-transducing means.
The present invention also provides a dental unit of the type comprising at least one main conduit for supplying a user fluid to a plurality of branches which supply the fluid to a set of handpieces and to patient-user units and a second conduit for aspirating a fluid from a patient; the dental unit comprising as built-in parts of it, detecting-transducing means of a chemical, biochemical or electrical type designed to detect a quantity as a function of a variable to be checked in the user fluid and/or in the fluid aspirated from the patient and to provide an electrical signal corresponding to the quantity detected; and means for signaling the quantity, connected to the detecting-transducing means.